Over crowded slum in Africa/AFP
“Three-quarters of people who live in cities and towns south of the Sahara live in an informal settlement or slum,” said Amnesty’s Kenya director, Justus Nyang’aya. “Governments in Africa have not got to grips with this reality.”
With growing urbanisation — by 2025, more Africans will live in a city or a town than a village — Amnesty said citizens must have legal protection and security of tenure, a current major block to development in slum areas.
Across Africa, large slum areas are often demolished with little or no warning, Amnesty added, in a campaign launched on the sidelines of a meeting of African housing ministers in Nairobi.
“Most people living in slums pay taxes, vote, put their children through school and contribute to the city’s economy,” said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty’s Africa director.
“Yet most have little or no access to sanitation, clean water, education and adequate healthcare,” he added.
Amnesty-organised rallies to end forced evictions were planned across Africa this week — including in Chad, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Slum dwellers from across Africa gathered at the same conference centre — but excluded from the ministerial meeting itself — in the hope of adding pressure on ministers by describing the daily challenges they face.
“We are labeled criminals and trespassers… a typical case of giving a dog a bad name so as to kill it conveniently,” said Alhassan Ibn Abdallah, who lives in the Old Fadama slum in the Ghanaian capital Accra.
“Politicians only recognise us during their electioneering campaign, we are forgotten after we have voted them into power,” Abdallah said, adding fears of demolition meant people stayed in wooden huts at high risk of fire, rather than investing in more permanent concrete buildings.
About The Author
